Gnosis Safe UX Analysis
Ask and ye shall receive
TL;DR: The Gnosis Safe mobile app is not quite ready for prime time. At this stage it is probably fine for users that are familiar with Ethereum, but there is much room for improvement to make everything smooth and in tune with common wallet design paradigms.
This is a UX analysis of the Gnosis Safe mobile app for iOS. I have not tried it in coordination with the browser extension yet. It’s not a 100% thorough analysis as I have to return to designing Aragon apps, but Ameen called upon me to perform this analysis, so “ask and ye shall receive”.
1. Assets
Sending assets
Right now you have to click the asset before sending. Suggestion: Add a “Send” button on the wallet landing page. Click send, then select asset.
Receiving assets
Right now I have to click on my avatar to see my full address/QR code. The common design pattern is to have a “receive” button on wallet landing page. Users may fumble since this deviates from wallet paradigms.
Asset display
Show me the value of my assets in my local currency on every screen where an amount is displayed.
2. Safe address
Copy to clipboard
Right now, to copy my safe address to clipboard, I have to click the share icon in the top right. Then from the share UI, I have to click copy.
This is not very intuitive nor smooth. Suggestion: Place a copy icon directly next to the address and clicking this will immediately copy to clipboard. Alternatively, copy the address to clipboard whenever I tap on the address.
Multiple address management
It would be nice to have the ability to manage multiple safe addresses on mobile.
Address truncation
I suggest adopting the truncation design paradigm which would be like: 0x539b…F015
(four characters after the 0x instead of two)
3. Recovery phrase
Right now I have to write it down my recovery phrase during the on-boarding process. Suggestion: Allow me to signup without saving my recovery phrase yet.
Perhaps prompt/remind me to write it down as soon as I receive a deposit that’s >100 DAI in value?
4. Safe opening fee
Having to deposit ETH to initiate the wallet adds friction. This one is definitely tricky, but I can see many users dropping off during this step (especially ones that are new, impatient, and just want to start using a wallet).
Technically, shouldn’t the user be able to play with the UI without depositing the funds first? Some ideas that come to mind to make on-boarding more smooth:
- User should be able to receive ETH at the address before paying to open the safe. (Since I can send ETH initially, does this mean I can receive both ETH and tokens even before the wallet is fully setup?)
- As soon as the user receives ETH for the first time, they are prompted to pay the opening fee when visiting the app. Alternatively, as soon as the user wants to send ETH from their safe, they are prompted to pay the fee.
I assume that some features may have to be disabled until the user pays the opening fee, if going down this path.
5. Manage Token List
When I go to manage my token list as a first time user, it is completely blank. Suggestion: add some descriptive text and put the call to action to add tokens on the main screen.
But ideally, we should move away from this paradigm of having to add tokens to see them in your wallet. Coinbase Wallet automatically detects when you receive a token and adds it to your assets automatically — that’s the direction we should move down.
Lastly, in general, something I’d love to see in wallets are Address Books: a way to manage addresses I frequently send crypto to (mapping a human readable name to a recipient address).
You can also have extra security measures by allowing the user to enable optional whitelisting functionality, to limit sending to whitelisted addresses only.
When whitelisting is enabled, any time you want to send crypto to a non-whitelisted address you can be prompted to enter your password.
Although you should be able to use the Address Book without whitelisting being enabled as well.
That’s all for now. If you liked this review feel free to follow me on Twitter (@stellarmagnet) or send ETH to my Gnosis Safe at 0x539b3b0f982359398E9f321C2c76b1F02Fe3F015
